ISO: MUS
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The electronic version of this document has been prepared at the Fourth
World Conference on Women by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
in collaboration with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women
Secretariat.
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AS WRITTEN
REPUBLIC OF MAURITIUS
FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN
BEIJING, CHINA, SEPTEMBER 1995
STATEMENT BY HONOURABLE MRS SHEILABAI BAPPOO,
MINISTER OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS, CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY WELFARE
Madam Chairperson,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me, Madam Chairperson, to congratulate you and the distinguished
members of your bureau on your election to preside over this august
assembly. On behalf of the Mauritius delegation, I would also like to
place on record my appreciation for the praise-worthy initiative taken by
the United Nations in convening this Conference.
On this historic occasion, I feel highly privileged and honoured to head
my country's delegation and to convey to the Government and the people of
the People's Republic of China and to all delegations present here today
the greetings of the Republic of Mauritius.
With a territory of roughly 2,000 sq. km, Mauritius has a multi-racial
population of about 1.1 million tracing its origins to three continents:
Europe, Asia and Africa. It is generally quoted as one of the rare
multiracial, multi-religious, multi- lingual, and mullet-cultural
countries living in peaceful co-existence and harmony. Mauritius acceded
to independence in 1968 and became a republic in 1992. Of all member
countries of the OAU, Mauritius has the lowest maternal mortality rate -
0.7 per 1,000 in 1994, the second lowest infant mortality rate 13.9 per
1,000.
The core issues of the Fourth World Conference on Women have been the
basis of the policy of the Mauritian Government which lays special
emphasis on human centred development. As Mauritius is not endowed with
natural resources, the economic development which was initially based on a
monocrop agricultural strategy has diversified to labour- intensive
export-oriented industries where women play a significant and productive
role in the social economic growth of the country.
Since the past decades various amendments have been brought to our
legislation with a view to empowering women legally; Marriage laws,
Pensions law, Income Tax laws inter-alia have been amended to give equal
rights to women. All this has been achieved with the active participation
of NGO's.
Madam Chairperson, it is with much pride that I wish to inform this
assembly that the Republic of Mauritius has made a gigantic stride on its
way to achieve equality. In fact only last months the Mauritian Government
has amended its Constitution with a view to eliminating all discrimination
based on sex. Women of Mauritius have, thus, come to the end of a long
struggle for equality.
The historic event in Beijing is a continuum of the process started 10
years ago in Nairobi. It connects us to goals and objectives set forward
in Mexico in 1975 and in Copenhagen in 1980 at previous World Conferences.
The UN Decade for Women from 1976 to 1985 was an undeniable breakthrough
in propelling women's issues to the forefront and in putting on the agenda
the themes of equality, development and peace throughout the world. WE
acknowledge the process made worldwide in the search for equality for
women and in the advancement of women. While we recognise that the
struggle is still on, the significant changes that our societies are
experiencing are bringing new challenges for women.
I firmly believe that equality constitutes the basis for promoting the
economic and social empowerment of women. One of the central challenges of
development is how to enable the labour force participation of women in
paid work to operate in a manner which is socially sustainable, thus
security the right of women to work. At the same time, the invisible
contribution of women in non-remunerated work has to be recognised and
economically and socially accounted for in national socio-economic
indicators.
As Minister of ;Womenís Rights, Child Development and Family Welfare, I
have succeeded in having my Ministry's current budget increased to the
order of 4.ů million US$ so as to implement policies, programmes and
projects relating to women, children and the family.
My Ministry is now adopting a policy oriented approach in the formulation
and implementation of its projects and programmes. A White Paper on Women
in Development has been prepared taking into consideration our
achievements in the field of health, education, employment, and other
economic and social indicators. It is worth noting that girls are taking
full advantage of free education and the enrolment rate for girls at
primary level is 93.32”. At secondary level, it is 47.690 as compared to
45.390 for boys.
Women have been the main beneficiaries of the welfare state policy of
Government, particularly in the health sector. The life expectancy of
women at birth is 73.9 years compared to 66.2 years for men. Much
consideration is given to womenís reproductive health. The general
fertility rate has fallen from l03.6% in 1972 to 70.4% in 1994, thus
bringing the population growth rate to 1,1% in 1994. The fact that women
have controlled their fertility has been one of the factors enabling them
to join the labour market and to play a significant role in the nation
building process. Thus about 40% of women are in the active labour force.
Madam Chairperson,
Several speakers have declared that this conference should be a conference
of- commitments and I would add that b-y declaring our national
commitments we would have a yardstick to measure the progress made by the
year 2000. Mauritius has already identified four critical areas among the
eleven areas of concern found in the Draft Global Platform of action and
is therefore committing itself first to the integration of gender issues
into the mainstream of Government and private sector activities. To this
end, I am pleased to say that the Government has already approved the
setting up of a gender management system which will enable national
machineries to formulate and influence policies taking into consideration
gender concerns. Secondly,mauritius is committing itself to developing a
holistic approach -to the health and welfare of women with special
attention to the girl-child women at work both at home and outside home
and the elderly women. In the field of health, we will also make
reproductive health a priority action area with country-wide breast and
cervical cancer detection campaigns. Our third commitment is the enactment
of a Domestic Violence Act coupled with a national IEC campaign, -the
reinforcement of both our Family Counselling Service and our School of
Parenting to fight the scourge of violence in the family. A survey will
also be conducted to identify impediments which arise in the
implementation of the law and which prevents women from enjoying their
full rights.
Our fourth commitment relates to education. We will further pursue our
policy to encourage girls to take up technical and non-traditional
subjects so that they may engage in professions which were hitherto
considered as male domains only.